As a founder member of Mystery Women in 1997, promoting Crime Fiction has always been my passion.
Following the closure of Mystery Women, a new group was formed on 30th January 2012 promoting crime fiction.
New reviews are posted daily, but to search for earlier reviews please click on the Mystery People link below and select 'reviews' from the welcome page. This will display an alphabetic option for you to find the review you would like to read

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Wednesday, 15 March 2017

‘Puritan’ by David Hingley

Published
by Allison & Busby, 19 January 2017. ISBN: 978-0-7490-2028-6

Mercia Blakewood
is on a commission for the newly-restored King Charles II, in the hope that he
will restore her family’s estates for her son. However, newly landed in
America, she hears first of a drowned minister with a strange coded message in
his pocket. Then her new friend, Clemency, the healer of the pioneer village
Meltdown, is found murdered.

This
historical novel moves the heroine from the relative safety of what will become
New York out into pioneer country, and then into an Indian encampment, and one
of the book’s strengths is its vivid descriptions of these locations. Mercia is
a feisty heroine who is determined to make her own decisions, and when she is
asked to leave Meltwater after Clemency’s murder, we know she’s not going to
leave it at that – nor does she. The people around her are also well drawn,
both pleasant, like her would-be lover Nathan and her manservant Nicholas, and
unpleasant, like the inaptly named constable, Humility Thomas. The plot is
intricate, and the events throughout the book keep the story moving quickly.
The prose and period details give an archaic feel to the story.

This novel follows straight on from the events
of Hingley’s first book, Birthright, and
because the characters are still recovering from the traumatic events of that
story, Puritan contains a number of
spoilers – so, if this sounds your kind of book, I would recommend reading that
first.

------

Reviewer:
Marsali Taylor

David Hingley was born in the English Midlands. After a
Spanish and Russian degree at the University of Manchester, he headed south to
London to work for a decade in government. In 2013 he moved to New York, where
he wrote his debut novel Birthright.
He has also lived in Paris, on the literary Left Bank. In addition to his love
of history, he has a passion for travel, most recently a number of road-trips
through over forty American states. He has now returned to England and is
writing his second book.

Marsali Taylor grew
up near Edinburgh, and came to Shetland as a newly-qualified teacher. She is
currently a part-time teacher on Shetland's scenic west side, living with her
husband and two Shetland ponies. Marsali is a qualified STGA tourist-guide who
is fascinated by history, and has published plays in Shetland's distinctive
dialect, as well as a history of women's suffrage in Shetland. She's also a
keen sailor who enjoys exploring in her own 8m yacht, and an active member of
her local drama group.Marsali also does
a regular monthly column for the Mystery People e-zine.

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About Me

From an early age I have been a lover of crime fiction. Discovering like minded people at my first crime conference at St Hilda’s Oxford in 1997, I was delighted when asked to join a new group for the promotion of female crime writers. In 1998 I took over the running of the group, which I did for the next thirteen years.
During that time I organised countless events promoting crime writers and in particular new writers. But apart from the sheer joy of reading, ‘I actually love books, not just the writing, the plot or the characters, but the sheer joy of holding a book has never abated for me. The greatest gift of my life has been the ability to read'.